A. Field of the invention
The invention relates to telephone communication systems and, more particularly, to telephone communication systems which utilize discrete multitone modulation to transmit data over digital subscriber lines.
B. Prior Art
The public switched telephone network (PSTN) provides the most widely available form of electronic communication for most individuals and businesses. Because of its ready availability and the substantial cost of providing alternative facilities, it is increasingly being called upon to accommodate the expanding demands for transmission of substantial amounts of data at high rates. Structured originally to provide voice communication with its consequent narrow bandwidth requirements, the PSTN increasingly relies on digital systems to meet the service demand.
A major limiting factor in the ability to implement high rate digital transmission has been the subscriber loop between the telephone central office (CO) and the premises of the subscriber. This loop most commonly comprises a single pair of twisted wires which are well suited to carrying low-frequency voice communications for which a bandwidth of 0-4 kHz is quite adequate, but which do not readily accommodate broad-band communications (i.e., bandwidths on the order of hundreds of kilohertz or more) without adopting new techniques for communication.
One approach to this problem has been the development of discrete multitone digital subscriber line (DMT DSL) technology and its variant, discrete wavelet multitone digital subscriber line (DWMT DSL) technology. These and other forms of discrete multitone digital subscriber line technology (such as ADSL, HDSL, etc.) will commonly be referred to hereinafter generically as "ADSL technology" or frequently simply as "DSL". The operation of discrete multitone systems, and their application to DSL technology, is discussed more fully in "Multicarrier Modulation For Data Transmission: An Idea Whose Time Has Come.", IEEE Commnunications Magazine, May, 1990, pp. 5-14.
In DSL technology, communications over the local subscriber loop between the central office and the subscriber premises is accomplished by modulating the data to be transmitted onto a multiplicity of discrete frequency carriers which are summed together and then transmitted over the subscriber loop. Individually, the carriers form discrete, non-overlapping communication subchannels of limited bandwidth; collectively, they form what is effectively a broadband communications channel. At the receiver end, the carriers are demodulated and the data recovered from them.
The data symbols that are transmitted over each subchannel carry a number of bits that may vary from subchannel to subchannel, dependent on the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the subchannel. The number of bits that can accommodated under specified communication conditions is known as the "bit allocation" of the subchannel, and is calculated for each subchannel in a known manner as a function of the measured SNR of the subchannel and the bit error rate associated with it.
The SNR of the respective subchannels is determined by transmitting a reference signal over the various subchannels and measuring the SNR's of the received signals. The loading information is typically calculated at the receiving or "local" end of the subscriber line (e.g., at the subscriber premises, in the case of transmission from the central telephone office to the subscriber, and at the central office in the case of transmission from the subscriber premises to the central office) and is communicated to the other (transmitting or "remote") end so that each transmitter-receiver pair in communication with each other uses the same information for communication. The bit allocation information is stored at both ends of the communication pair link for use in defining the number of bits to be used on the respective subchannels in transmitting data to a particular receiver. Other subchannel parameters such as subchannel gains, time and frequency domain equalizer coefficients, and other characteristics may also be stored to aid in defining the subchannel.
Information may, of course, be transmitted in either direction over the subscriber line. For many applications, such as the delivery of video, internet services, etc. to a subscriber, the required bandwidth from central office to subscriber is many times that of the required bandwidth from subscriber to central office. One recently developed service providing such a capability is based on discrete multitone asymmetric digital subscriber line (DMT ADSL) technology. In one form of this service, up to two hundred and fifty six subchannels, each of 4312.5 Hz bandwidth, are devoted to downstream (from central office to subscriber premises) communications, while up to thirty two subchannels, each also of 4312.5 Hz bandwidth, provide upstream (from subscriber premises to central office) communications. Communication is by way of "frames" of data and control information. In a presently-used form of ADSL communications, sixty eight data frames and one synchronization frame form a "superframe" that is repeated throughout the transmission. The data frames carry the data that is to be transmitted; the synchronization or "sync" frame provides a known bit sequence that is used to synchronize the transmitting and receiving modems and that also facilitates determination of transmission subchannel characteristics such as signal-to-noise ratio ("SNR"), among others.
Although such systems do in fact provide a significantly increased bandwidth for data communications, special precautions are required to avoid interference with, and from, ordinary voice communications and associated signaling that may be taking place over the subscriber line at the same time that the broadband data is being carried. The signaling activities commonly include, for example, the transmission of ringing signals, busy tone, off-hook indications, on-hook indications, dialing signals, and the like, and the actions commonly accompanying them, e.g., taking the phone off-hook, replacing it on-hook, dialing, etc. These voice communications and their associated signaling, commonly referred to as "plain old telephone service" or POTS , presently are isolated from the data communications by modulating the data communications onto frequencies that are higher than those used for POTS ; the data communications and POTS signals are thereafter separately retrieved by appropriate demodulation and filtering. The filters which separate the data communications and the POTS are commonly referred to as "POTS splitters".
The voice and data communications must be separated at both the central office and the subscriber premises, and thus POTS splitters must be installed at both locations. Installation at the central office is generally not a significant problem, since a single modem at the central office can serve a large number of subscribers, and technicians are commonly available there. Installation at the customer premises is a problem. Typically, a trained technician must visit the premises of every subscriber who wishes to use this technology in order to perform the requisite installation. In connection with this, extensive rewiring may have to be done, dependent on the desired location of the ADSL devices. This is expensive and discourages the use of DSL technology on a widespread basis.
DSL systems also experience disturbances from other data services on adjacent phone lines (such as ADSL, HDSL, ISDN, or T1 service). These services may commence after the subject ADSL service is already initiated and, since DSL for internet access is envisioned as an always-on service, the effect of these disturbances must be ameliorated by the subject ADSL transceiver.